PHP AND CSS

avatar_alex

ok the code that I need help with is very very simple but

<?php

include("connect.php");

$query="SELECT * FROM hompage ";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$num = mysql_num_rows ($result);
mysql_close();

if ($num > 0 ) {
$i=0;
while ($i < $num) {
$title = mysql_result($result,$i,"title");
$content = mysql_result($result,$i,"content");
$id = mysql_result($result,$i,"id");

echo "$title <br>";
echo "$content<br>";
echo "<br><br>";

++$i; } } else { echo "The database is empty"; }?>

and where echo "$title <br>"; is I need to know how i would get css to effect it like bold the $title when it shows up on the page

NogDog

You'd probably be better off using semantically meaningful HTML instead of just using <br> tags to force line breaks:

echo "<h3 class='article'>$title</h3>\n";
echo "<p class='article'>$content</p>\n";

Then in your CSS stylesheet (or <style> block in the <head> section of the page itself) specify how you want those elements to appear. For example:

h3.article {
   font-size: 110%;
   font-weight: bold;
   margin: 1em 0 0.5em 0;
}
p.article {
   margin: 0.5em 0 2em 0;
}

avatar_alex

it saids there a error

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting ',' or ';' in 
/home/mystrh00/domains/witchin.net/public_html/layout/cms/index2.php on line 17

avatar_alex

never mind I fixed it thanks

bradgrafelman

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.

Roger_Ramjet

In the general case: if you want to style dynamic content then you can use the <span> tag on just about anything


if ($condition) {
   echo '<span class="special">' . $var . '</span>';
}

NogDog

Roger Ramjet wrote:
In the general case: if you want to style dynamic content then you can use the <span> tag on just about anything
if ($condition) {
   echo '<span class="special">' . $var . '</span>';
}

Certainly you can, and in many cases it will make sense to do so. But <span> and <div> have no semantic meaning, so when there is a tag which does have a semantic meaning applicable to the situation, it should be used instead. For example, use <em> or <strong> instead of <span> when the intent is to emphasize some in-line text, <p> instead of the generic <div> when the intent is to present a paragraph of text, or <ul> instead of <table> when the intent is to present a navigation menu (which is simply a list of links).

Roger_Ramjet

Yes well, I did specify it was the 'general case' and could be used 'on just about anything', meaning content for which there was no obviously applicable tag. My post was in addition to, not opposition to, your post NoDog.

NogDog

Roger Ramjet wrote:
Yes well, I did specify it was the 'general case' and could be used 'on just about anything', meaning content for which there was no obviously applicable tag. My post was in addition to, not opposition to, your post NoDog.

Sorry, my intent (though in hindsight not worded that way) was not to correct your post, but to make sure it was clear to any newbies reading it that preference should be given to the most appropriately meaningful HTML markup options. I was pretty sure you already knew that stuff. 🙂

scrupul0us

don't feel remorse for understanding the x/html model and its usefulness nogdog...

eventually people come around... it only took me a few years to move away from tabled layouts to CSS even though i knew it was for my own good

Roger_Ramjet

scrupul0us wrote:
... it only took me a few years to move away from tabled layouts to CSS even though i knew it was for my own good

It's funny that, it took me about 2 minutes (the time it took to google CSS and find out what it stood for) to make the move. It took me the same 2 minutes to comprehend how CSS should be used. And it has taken me untold hours to learn how CSS can be used without my pages falling apart in one browser or another.

The trouble is that CSS as an abstract and CSS-as-is are 2 completely different species. I'm sure that if all I did day-in and day-out was front-end design then I would have all the browser quirks and hacks at my finger tips; as it is I have to waste a ridiculous amount of time using trial and error just to get some element to do what it is supposed to do. No wonder most people are still using tables and frames.

For me, and I know they will howl with outrage at this, the people driving the whole X/HTML/CSS things are rooted in the notion of everything being a 'document': that is, a physical and static printed page. The legacy that "SGML was originally designed to enable the sharing of machine-readable documents in large projects in government, legal and the aerospace industry, which have to remain readable for several decades" is the root of the problem. This is print industry thinking.

I have always been offended by the way that print-biased community co-opted DTD. Since the 80's a DTD was a DATA Type Definition, not a Document Type Definition. Really, all documents may be data but not all data is a document. It is the inability of the community driving web standards to comprehend this that causes so much pain.

For most of us, web pages are dynamic entities that are instantiated at run time and only endure for the lifetime of a user session. This is totally incompatible with the legacy of SGML.

Now even XML is being perverted. Originally conceived as a means of defining a DATA structure that was both human and machine readable, it is rapidly becoming just another way of marking up a DOCUMENT??